COMMENTARY: Violence against women _ it’s worse than we thought

c. 1998 Religion News Service. (Marie M. Fortune is a minister in the United Church of Christ. She is Executive Director of the Center for the Prevention of Sexual and Domestic Violence in Seattle and author of Keeping the Faith: Guidelines for Christian Women Facing Abuse.) UNDATED _ In the midst of much ado about […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service.

(Marie M. Fortune is a minister in the United Church of Christ. She is Executive Director of the Center for the Prevention of Sexual and Domestic Violence in Seattle and author of Keeping the Faith: Guidelines for Christian Women Facing Abuse.)

UNDATED _ In the midst of much ado about the decrease in violent crimes, there is a new, comprehensive study of violence against women that is disturbing in its implications and that should spark concern among us all, perhaps especially in religious circles.


The National Violence Against Women Survey of 1998 gives us fresh numbers, and they are worse than we thought: 52 percent of women surveyed reported being physically assaulted in childhood or adulthood and 18 percent of women surveyed reported attempted or completed rape. Of those sexually assaulted, 54 percent were under 17 years old.

There’s more.

Violence against women is not a stranger crime: For 76 percent of the women surveyed who were raped or physically assaulted as adults, the assailant was an intimate partner or date. The perpetrators of this violence were 93 percent male.

Those are the facts. Why should they concern those of us who are Christians or Jews or who come from other religious traditions? Aren’t we somehow immune to such things? Doesn’t God somehow protect us from these traumas? Hardly.

If we translate these numbers to any congregation or gathering of the faithful, we would see that one in four women _ and one in 12 men _ sitting in the pew each week has been a victim of assault.

Now add to this the fact that the assailant is most likely also sitting in the pew, perhaps even beside the victim.

Here is one case.

A Mr. Espinoza was arrested on charges of domestic assault and attempted marital rape after he broke down the locked door of his wife’s room, held her down and tried to force her sexually. After his wife brought charges, he based his defense on the religion clauses of the First Amendment. He argued his church had taught him that once he was married, he had the right to have sex with his wife whenever he pleased, and the state had no right to override his religious conviction. Fortunately, the judge didn’t buy it, and Espinoza was convicted.

What does the church say about these things? Frequently, very little. In the Espinoza case, a reporter sought comment from the archdiocese, whose spokesperson noted the Roman Catholic Church teaches that sex should be shared between husband and wife in a loving relationship. But there was no comment in support of this battered woman and no calling to account of her abusive husband.


Our scriptures and tradition are filled with stories of the physical and sexual assault of women. The story in Hebrew scripture of Tamar, for example, is a harrowing tale of betrayal of a young woman’s trust by her brother. Hearing her brother Amnon was ill, Tamar went to attend him. Not sick at all, Amnon raped her. Having used and abused her, he tossed her aside. She felt shamed by this experience and lived in desolation in the house of her other brother, Absalom. Amnon was confronted by Absalom, who then killed him. Yet the passage’s focus is the fratricide. The rape of Tamar is but a subplot. Her experience parallels that of one in four women today: assaulted by an intimate family member whom she trusted.

Occasionally in Scripture we stumble across a woman’s story which does not end in victimization. The story of Vashti in the book of Esther is such a saga. Queen Vashti was sent for by the king so that he might parade her beauty before his cronies in court.

Rather than face this degradation, she refused to appear. As rumors of her resistance began to spread among the women of the kingdom, the king went looking for an obedient queen. His advisers, worried the insolence would spread, urged him to send out a decree commanding women to obey their husbands. It is safe to assume Vashti’s story was conveyed to the people; after all, she made it into the canon. Who knows _ maybe she was somehow the inspiration for Mrs. Espinoza to finally say”no”to her abusive husband.

Where religious teachings have been misinterpreted or misused to justify assault of women, it is long overdue that the church, synagogue and mosque break the silence. We need clear, unequivocal religious teaching that supports victims of assault and abuse and calls their abusers to account. It is time religious leaders put aside denial and passivity to speak with compassion and strength to the needs of our people who have experienced sexual or physical assault. They are waiting to hear our voices.

DEA END FORTUNE

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